“Things must be in a strange way in New York just now with operative printers. We know this from two of our men, who went out there some months ago in the hope of bettering their condition; but they were glad to come back to us, and they are both at work again, each at the machine at which he worked before he left. The history of the experiences of one of the men was as follows:—He got to New York, but he had no sooner begun to look out for work than he was set upon by a committee of operative printers, who were at the time on strike, and he was offered eleven dollars a week if he would not ask for work. The offer was too good a one for him to refuse, and he went about for several weeks with his hands in his pockets. By-and-by he was asked if he would not like to go back to Scotland. He said he had no objections, and it was arranged that his passage back should be paid. When the day came for his leaving, some of the New York men came down to the steamer to see him off, and they gave him five dollars for pocket-money during the voyage, and a sum of ten dollars to give to his wife, whom he had left behind in Edinburgh. And so he left the shores of America. The story of the other man is still more strange. He took work in an office in which there was a strike; but after being there for a week, he found his position so uncomfortable from annoyance from the men who had left, that he went and told his master he would have to leave on account of this. But what was his surprise when his master told him that he need not allow this state of matters to continue, as he had just to put a ball through one of the fellows, and there would be an end of it; and that the utmost that would be done to him in the way of punishment would be a day or two’s confinement in the police office or jail. He then handed him a revolver and said, ‘Take this and make good use of it, and you’ll have a quiet life for the future.’ This pistol I have now in my possession, and it is worth having as a curiosity.”
At an earlier date the mischievous effects of a strike extended to the Hope Park works, ending in the places of some of the strikers being supplied by other applicants. But the victims learned by experience that they never appealed in vain to the sympathy of William Nelson, even when their share in the revolt had been characterized by ingratitude or breach of faith. It was sufficient that they were impoverished. “Poor fellow!” he would say, “he brought it on himself; but what of that?” And the liberal aid was given only too readily; for the plea was discovered to be one to which he most promptly responded, and was resorted to frequently by impostors who preyed on his kindly sympathy. What, indeed, the Rev. Dr. Alison remarked of him after his death, when he said: “He simply could not turn from distress of any sort without doing something to relieve it,” was no more than an echo of the sentiment which experience had rendered familiar to many.
CHAPTER VI.
EGYPT AND PALESTINE.
THE excursions of early years, and the longer holiday rambles of student life, for which the environs of Edinburgh and the neighbouring shores of Fife afforded so many attractions, were exchanged for a time for the prosaic rounds of the commercial traveller and book-agent. But this duty was transferred ere long to trustworthy subordinates; and so soon as prosperity rewarded the intelligent labours of the young adventurer, the spirit that prompted earlier excursions revived. This was further stimulated by that keen desire to see and judge for himself in reference to all matters of general interest which manifested itself through life. The occurrence of any unusual event, or the opening up of some new region, was sufficient at any time to awaken the desire to explore a scene rendered interesting by its novelty, or by the exceptional circumstances which attracted his notice. When the first Pacific Railway was completed, he crossed the Atlantic in company with Mrs. Nelson, travelled to San Francisco, visited the Yellowstone Region and the Mariposa Valley, and returned through Canada to renew his intercourse with old friends there. While in the Mariposa Valley, Mrs. Nelson was presented with one of the giant Sequoia, or Wellingtonia, which now bears, on a marble tablet attached to it, the name of “Auld Reekie,” then bestowed on it. At Salt Lake City a Scotsman addressed Mr. Nelson by name, and begged him to convey his respects to his old clergyman, the Rev. W. Arnot of Edinburgh; but in mentioning this, Mr. Nelson dryly added that the Free Churchman of Salt Lake City seemed to take very kindly to its spiritual wives! He visited Paris in 1851, and exposed himself to its dangers at the time of the famous coup d’état by which the Third Napoleon made himself emperor. Twenty years later he hastened again to the French capital in the perilous outbreak of the Commune; and when the Christmas season of 1879 was overclouded by the disastrous fall of the Tay Bridge, immediately on learning of the event he made his way to Dundee to see for himself the ruins and to investigate the cause. He succeeded in finding a man who had watched the lights of the train as it swept on in the profound darkness, and was startled by their being suddenly extinguished. The bridge had given way; and the train, with all its passengers, was precipitated into the Tay. In like manner he set out for the Scilly Islands on the occasion of the wreck of the Schiller; travelled to Ischia after the occurrence of the earthquake of 1881, in which the town of Casamicciola was almost totally destroyed; and when, in the following year, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act led to a violent popular outbreak in Connemara, he crossed over to Ireland, that he might visit the disturbed district and judge for himself of the merits of the conflict.
The amount of preparation for even the longest journey was amazingly trifling. William Nelson would start almost at a day’s notice for an extended tour; and this course of procedure, so characteristic of his equanimity, conjoined with calm, resolute endurance, was curiously exemplified in his first extended journey. In 1849 he left home with the intention of spending a six weeks’ holiday in the south of Europe. He was in Leghorn when a letter reached him which showed that all was going on satisfactorily in the business. He thereupon decided to make an extended journey to the East. But his funds were exhausted, and it was before the days of railways or telegraphs. With a faith in human nature characteristic of him through life, he stepped into the counting-house of Messrs. Henderson Brothers, the leading British merchants in Leghorn. He was a total stranger, with no introduction. He told them his story, and asked them to cash a draft on Edinburgh for £300. They looked at him, and after a pause told him to draw the cheque, and gave him the money. The strangers became friends in later years; and one day, when Mr. Robert Henderson was dining at Salisbury Green, William Nelson asked him how it was that he and his brother had ventured to give a stranger so large a sum. “Well,” said Mr. Henderson, “in plain truth, it was just your Scotch tongue and honest Scotch face, and nothing else!” The friendship which originated in this novel introduction lasted with their lives.
There was, in truth, something singularly winning in his open, handsome countenance; and its influence on strangers was anew illustrated at a later date, when Mrs. Nelson accompanied him in a tour through the Black Forest. They were overtaken by a thunderstorm when in Baden-Baden, and taking refuge in the nearest shop, they found it devoted to articles of virtu. A woman in charge, who spoke English fluently, received them courteously, and responded to Mr. Nelson’s inquiries in a way that greatly interested him. On leaving he expressed his grateful thanks, and said he would have liked to make some purchases, but unfortunately his remaining funds were not more than sufficient for his journey home. The reply was: “Take whatever you please, sir. No one could look in your face and distrust you.” He did accordingly carry off some choice objects of virtu, always a temptation to him; the money for which, it is scarcely necessary to add, was duly remitted on reaching England.
Provided, on such novel security, with funds requisite for a prolonged tour in the East, he was absent upwards of ten months, and turned the time to account with characteristic assiduity. The late President of Queen’s College, Belfast, the Rev. Dr. J. Leslie Porter, who, as a traveller in Palestine, was familiar with the scenes embraced in Mr. Nelson’s tour, and repeatedly conversed with him on points of mutual interest, remarks:—“He did not as a rule enter into detailed descriptions of the localities he had visited. His chief desire apparently was to elicit from those with whom he talked the fullest information, as if to add to or correct his own impressions. One thing particularly struck me: his questions were all pertinent and exactly to the point. He showed a talent in obtaining exactly the information he wished such as I have never known equalled, except in the case of one person. He could glean a wonderful amount of knowledge in a very brief period. He had himself been a close and accurate observer. He knew exactly the points which, from want of time or opportunity, he had not been able perfectly to grasp, and he put his questions in a form that brought out every particle of information the person he addressed could give.
“Of Damascus Mr. Nelson spoke with great enthusiasm. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘richness, beauty, and fertility are there. Where,’ he asked, ‘was the scene of Paul’s conversion? Was it near the east gate, where tradition has located it?’ I pointed out that this could scarcely be, as Paul was on his way from Jerusalem, and the road from the Holy City approaches Damascus from the opposite side. He next inquired whether there was still any tradition of Abraham; and he was very much interested when I told him that a few miles to the north there is still a shrine, at the foot of the hills, called the prayer-place of Abraham. ‘Is not that,’ he said, ‘a proof of the tenacity with which even the oldest traditions cling to the country?’ There was much in this; and he seemed to feel, as others have felt, that it may be used as an argument in favour of the truth of the early Christian traditions regarding the holy places of Jerusalem and other cities in Palestine. He asked much about the leprosy. ‘Did any tradition of it exist in Damascus?’ I remember well how deeply he seemed to be impressed when I told him that a short distance outside the east gate there were the remains of a very ancient building, called Naaman’s House, and that a portion of it was still used as a leper hospital. He said to me, ‘I looked for the Straight Street, mentioned in connection with the conversion of St. Paul, but could see no trace of it.’ Then I told him the results of more recent researches; how they had brought to light the position and character of that great street which ran through the city from the east to the west gate, and had on each side a double row of columns, fragments of which can still be seen in the houses and courts adjoining.”
But he had a no less keen eye for the modern Damascus, with its motley population, its narrow streets and thronged bazaars, all full of strange Eastern life and habits. “The mean, dirty thoroughfares, worse,” as he says, “than an Old Town Edinburgh close, run between low, shabby-looking houses; and nothing surprised me more than when I was taken through a long dark passage, to suddenly find that the shabby street-front concealed a beautiful court, laid out in garden fashion, with a fine fountain in the centre, and flower-beds and orange trees, and round this the chambers, brightly furnished with cushions and matting, etc., all opening on to it, like a scene from the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.” Nevertheless the predominant thought in his mind was the Damascus of Roman and New Testament times; the city to which Saul the persecutor was journeying when he was arrested on the way, and commissioned to go far hence to proclaim the gospel of glad tidings to the Gentile world.
Having gratified his intelligent curiosity, in seeking to discover the ancient localities of Damascus associated with Scripture history, he proceeded by way of Lebanon to Jerusalem. The associations of the city of Zion, of Nazareth, the Jordan, the Syrian desert, and the Dead Sea, were replete with interest to a mind trained from earliest childhood in devout familiarity with every incident of sacred story. The novel scenes of Eastern life were, moreover, explored with peculiar zest in this his first escape from the restraints of homely Western civilization into that strange old East where the customs and ideas of an ancient past still survive. In referring to this visit to Jerusalem he remarks:—“I was there before any guide-book was written; and so I had to consult my Bible, and occasionally Josephus, on a point of history. After these I found Robinson’s ‘Biblical Researches’ the most thorough and useful. Robinson seemed to me to write, and study, and investigate as a scholar. Perhaps he paid rather too little regard to tradition; but this was natural in a place like Jerusalem, which absolutely swarms with the most absurd legends. He lays down on the whole a firm basis of biblical and historical facts; then he leads one on in a logical and critical manner to the truth regarding the exact sites of the great events of the Gospel narrative: the site of the Temple, of the Palace of David, of the Hall of Judgment in which Pilate sat, of the old walls and gates of the Holy City, etc. Then Robinson seemed to me to prove that the Holy Sepulchre could not have been where it is now located.”